Style Meets Speed

Guglielmo Miani, CEO of the luxury brand Larusmiani based in Milan, is crazy about craftsmanship, exquisite materials, the dynamism of his hometown – and his turbos.

A single letter, “G,” appears on the doorbell panel. And the doormen on the ground floor are slow to respond if you ask to see “Signore Miani.” It’s better to mention his first name. “Guglielmo, of course!” They give him a call, and only then are you allowed to enter the mahogany elevator, which goes directly to his penthouse.

It’s 8:30 a.m. on Friday morning in Milan, not far from Quadrilatero d’Oro, the famous, upscale fashion district. Guglielmo Miani greets us in a dark-blue velvet bathrobe with stitched satin lapel. For the photo shoot, the owner of the elegant Larusmiani brand is wearing the Clark Gable model from his own collection. “Buon giorno, I’m Guglielmo,” he says warmly. “Would you like some coffee?” Shortly afterwards, a cup of the finest espresso is placed on the living room table.

“I don’t do fashion,” clarifies the 46-year-old right away. “I’m not interested in trends.” For Larusmiani, it’s all about providing discerning clientele with “beautiful, well-thought-out products.” He goes on to say that both the men’s clothing and the accessories are “fatto a mano,” which means “handmade,” and represent style rather than extravagance. And the only extreme thing about him, he says, is his “craziness for quality.”

He inherited that from his grandfather, with whom he shares his name. It was Guglielmo Miani senior who developed the Larusmiani brand some 100 years ago. At the age of 17, he packed his cardboard suitcase in Apulia in southern Italy and moved up north to try his luck. With just a few lire in his pocket, he was determined to make something of himself. In 1922, he opened a tailor shop in a courtyard on Via Manzoni in Milan and called it “Larus,” which is Latin for “seagull,” because it sounded like freedom to him. According to his grandson, who has two grown children of his own, the pursuit of freedom and their extrovert personalities are what the two of them have in common.

And luck was with his grandfather. Before long, he was tailoring fine suits for illustrious customers and would eventually meet his future wife on Via Manzoni. He also had a good sense for business. Because the finest fabrics came from England at that time, he began doing business with the English and became Italy’s largest importer of British fabrics.

And of course, it perfectly matches the marine-blue 911 (993) Turbo from 1995 parked in his garage. Miani says he’s been a Porsche enthusiast virtually from birth. He even had a shelf with models of the sports car brand in his childhood bedroom. While studying at Babson College near Boston Entrepreneurship, he saw another student’s father driving the 993, his new dream car. When the two of them visited the father together in Miami, they secretly took his 911 out for joyrides in the city.

Miani’s 911 comes from the Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur, originally custom-made for a customer in Japan. The leather equipment in the interior and even the dials are Can Can Red, like the skirts of the dancers at Moulin Rouge in Paris. The dashboard, too, has the same red tone. All five of the Porsche vehicles that Miani owns come from the Exclusive Manufaktur in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen. In the garage of the Larusmiani headquarters, the CEO points to his silver-colored 911 (996) with Boxster Red interior. Even the ventilation slits are covered in leather. “That’s some crazy work,” he acknowledges.

To raise awareness of his fabrics, Miani senior came up with new advertising promotions on a regular basis. In 1968, he had an English phone booth shipped to Milan’s Piazza del Duomo for Christmas to promote his British fabrics. Children could use the phone to talk to Santa Claus. Another time, he had two living vicuñas brought into one of his shops to show how fine their wool is. The newspapers had a heyday with the story. Apparently, he knew even then what the shop windows of Milan still are to this day: spectacles, dreams, and temptations. “He was a true marketing man!” says his grandson, laughing.

He always kept his finger on the pulse. “Anyone who wanted a suit before the 1950s had to go to a tailor,” says Miani. “Then ready-to-wear suits took off.” His grandfather, too, began producing ready-to-wear collections – by hand, of course. Larusmiani continues to do the same to this day. All of the clothing is manufactured at the in-house ­workshop in Tuscany, which employs 40 tailors. It takes around 60 hours to sew a single suit. “Producing an article of clothing by hand is much like creating a work of art,” says Miani. He points out that every tailor has their own trademark.

When Guglielmo Miani senior retired, his son took over the brand. But because Riccardo Miani was much more of an introvert, he preferred to leave the designer stage to his wife and expanded the fabric business himself. Riccardo established a manufactory for the production of Italian fabrics, which had not only improved in quality, but were now also lighter, more supple, and more modern than British textiles. For the production, he purchased the finest raw materials in the world, such as cotton, silk, cashmere, and linen.